The international jury of the 48th Annual World Press Photo contest selected a color image by Indian photographer Arko Datta as World Press Photo of the Year 2004. The picture shows an Indian woman mourning the death of a relative who was killed in the Asian tsunami. Datta also received a cash prize of 10,000 euro and a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II camera. The winning photographs can be seen at worldpressphoto.nll.

The jury awarded prizes in 10 categories and selected one image as the World Press Photo. This year, the contest broke two records, the number of photographers and the number of photographs entered: 4,266 professional photographers from 123 countries entered their work, with a total number of 69,190 images. It was also the first time that the judging was completely digital.